Home is Where the TARDIS is
by Fred-Weasley-Isn't-Dead
Summary: What if you were an ordinary girl walking home from an ordinary school day on an ordinary street and suddenly, a strange man and a blue box materialized out of nowhere? Would you run? Would you keep walking and pretend not to notice it? Would you follow the strange man to see what he was up to?


What if you were an ordinary girl walking home from an ordinary school day on an ordinary street and suddenly, a strange man and a blue box materialized out of nowhere? Would you run? Would you keep walking and pretend not to notice it? Would you follow the strange man to see what he was up to?

Skylar Schofield chose to do the last.

Pausing her music, earbuds in her ears nonetheless, she followed after the strange man, his long overcoat flapping behind him in the wind. There was just a slight chill to the air, like something was sucking out all the heat, but it was November, it was supposed to be getting cold. She followed him to a pot hole, where there were a bunch of little lizards going down. Quickly pretending to be a regular passerby, she ducked her head from the window, watching from the corner of her eye as the man glanced around and quickly dove into the pothole. She followed, pulling her beanie down over her ears. It was even colder down here.

She followed the sound of trainers on damp pavement, picking up the pace whenever the sound started to grow fainter. She wasn't quite expecting to see a bunch of lizards growing into one huge, huge lizard. She grimaced. She'd never been a fan of lizards.

The strange man had put his glasses on, or that's what it looked like, since her back was to him. His head was tilted back to stare up at the lizard, hands in the pockets of his pinstripe pants. "Identify yourself!" he demanded.

Just as the giant lizard had begun to open it's mouth, the sound of Panic! at the Disco started playing from Skylar's phone. It was her brother, Asher's, personalized ringtone. "No, no, fuck, not now," she hissed, fumbling for her phone as the man turned to give her a look.

"Who are you and just what are you doing down here?" he asked, one eyebrow raised as he stared at her in blatant confusion.

Once her phone was silenced and shoved back in her pocket, Skylar crossed her arms and gave the man a look. "Really? You're focusing on me right now?" she asked.

The man seemed to consider this before he grabbed this weird looking torch and turned back to the giant lizard, pointing it before turning back to her. "Don't go running off!" he said as he glanced to the ground to indicate her staying where she was as he approached the lizard. "I said to identify yourself!"

Giving a distorted version of the laugh, the lizard said, "I need not identify myself for you will only identify yourself if I do and I already know who you are." Skylar was a bit taken aback as it started talking and then it was walking on four legs, low to the ground but growing bigger as more and more lizards added to it. "The Doctor, last of the Time Lords. Nothing but a lonely man who can never manage to keep a companion." The Doctor, or so he was called, didn't move, didn't even blink, just kept watching the creature with a stony face. "But since I am a fair creature, I like guessing as much as the next," the lizard said, "I will give you three hints as to who I am."

Both Skylar and the Doctor raised their eyebrows, the former scoffing and mumbling, "How many giant lizard things can live on Earth?"

"More than you'd believe," the Doctor retorted without taking it's eyes off the creature, "Trust me." Skylar merely rolled her eyes in response.

"Hint number one," the lizard said before it blew out a thick stream of fire that had Skylar coughing and waving away the smoke.

"I think you just signed the hair off my arms," she muttered, rolling her eyes yet again as the Doctor shushed her.

The Doctor started pacing, scratching the back of his head as he thought. "So, you breathe fire and it gets cold, you're not giving me much to work on," he said, mostly to himself but he turned to look at the lizard again.

The lizard just gave a chuckle as it stood up on two legs and back down onto four, his back legs buckling as though they couldn't handle the weight. "Hint number two: While you are the last of your kind, I am the only of my kind," he said, almost sadly, as if he longed for companionship. "If I am to die, my species will go extinct."

This seemed to open up a whole new world for the Doctor and he scrunched up his nose as he thought. Skylar was thinking as well. "Well, you sound so-"

"Shh!"

"But-" Skylar protested, only to be quieted again.

Skylar stomped her foot in frustration, demanding attention. "I know what he is!" she exclaimed before she could be shushed. Both the Doctor and the lizard turned to stare at her in bewilderment. "And I'll say it," she said, smirking at the Doctor before she started in. "Unless you get the hell out of here," she demanded, pointing to the lizard and then to the Doctor. "And only if you tell me what the hell is going on." She leaned against the wall and looked between the lizard and the Doctor. "I'm waiting."

"You're a bit cheeky, aren't you?" The Doctor asked, his mouth curled into a small, amused smile. "No, but really, tell me, what is he?"

"Just the Salamander," Skylar said. "And not like the reptilian-"

"Amphibian," both the Salamander and the Doctor corrected in unison.

"Whatever! The thing is, you're a myth. And you're here, in front of me. Why?" Skylar asked, not finding this whole thing as unnerving as she could. She had probably tripped on the way home and hit her head on the pavement. This was all a dream, obviously.

The Doctor answered before the Salamander could, his brilliant mind whirring at a hundred kilometers per hour. "Well, the Salamander, according to most legends, has got to have his body rejuvenated by fire. I've been tracking him here all the way for the past eight planets. He has to burn them up to get energy, a new skin, of sorts. Like, what a phoenix does when it dies."

"Goes up in flames and is born anew?" Skylar asked, cocking her head to the side as she tried to imagine that but with the Salamander instead of a phoenix. It wasn't a pretty picture. She quickly pushed it out of her mind.

"Something like that, yeah," the Doctor replied, hardly paying any attention to her. "But I'm not going to let you burn up this planet. I can find you a planet to live out your final years on, but everything has it's time to die. Everything."

The Salamander merely chuckled before it snorted out another stream of fire, this time at the Doctor, which he narrowly managed to avoid. He obviously wasn't okay with leaving.

None of this was really striking Skylar as weird. After all, it was only a dream, aren't things supposed to be weird. She just took out her earbuds as the Doctor held up his odd torch again, turning to me and nodding. "You may want to run," he said before he pressed a button on his torch and the sound of gushing water started in for the Salamander. Skylar didn't run, but she did duck behind the Doctor, so as to avoid getting entirely washed down by water. The Doctor just watched with a grim face as the water ran over the creature and when it cleared, there was nothing there. They started for the exit in silence, the Doctor not wanting to admit to what he had just done and Skylar still a bit confused as to what had happened.

"Talk," the Doctor demanded as they sat down on a bench not far from the pothole, both dripping wet and Skylar wringing the water out of her hair. "How did you find me? Why did you follow me? Who _are_ you?"

"In order," Skylar began, "I was walking home from school and I heard this grinding sound, like…" She paused, trying to think of a way to describe it before giving up and making the sound. "Then this blue box appears out of nowhere and you step outside of it. I followed you because I was curious. And my name is—"

"Skylar!" Both heads turned to see a tall blond bounding towards them.

"Where were you?" the girl asked, hands on her hips and her eyebrows raised expectantly.

The boy next to her just glanced at the Doctor. "And who are you? And why didn't you answer your phone when I called you before?"

The Doctor and Skylar shared a quick glance. "Well," he began, standing up and extending a hand to the boy. "She was busy. I'm the Doctor." The boy was quick to shake his hand.

"Asher."

The Doctor then turned to the girl, hand out but she was more hesitant. "What kind of doctor are you, like, a school nurse type doctor?"

"Yes!" the Doctor said quickly, jumping at the answer so he didn't have to explain what was going on.

"Then why are you we-?" Asher managed to ask before Skylar all but crushed his toes underneath her foot. He yelped but fell silent.

Skylar's older sister glanced between the Doctor and Skylar before she nodded up the street. "We're going," she said coolly, motioning for her sister to stop walking.

"But Teagan!" Skylar whined, before getting an idea and remaining firmly in place on the pavement. "Asher, if you even try to pick me up, I will do a hell of a lot worse than step on your toes." That seemed like enough incentive for Asher not to try and pick his sister up.

Teagan sighed, crossing her arms in frustration. "We don't have time for this. Mum's cooking and you're going to get sick if you stay out any longer in the cold."

"Well," Skylar began. "I'll go…if the Doctor comes with me."

"What?" the Doctor asked quickly, not having yet begun to make his quiet escape for his blue box.

Skylar just turned to give the Doctor a look. "You owe me an explanation anyway," she replied casually, shrugging as the Doctor groaned. He sort of _did_ owe her an explanation.

"Fine, we go to your house, I explain, you stay there, I leave," the Doctor said, hands in the pockets of his pants again. Skylar, now that she was content with the situation, nodded and waited for the Doctor to start walking before she followed after him.

The walk was spent in relative silence until the siblings reached their house and Teagan pushed the door open. "Mum?" she called. "We're home!"

The sound of bare feet grew nearer and nearer as the Doctor distracted himself from looking around, not really wanting to meet yet another mother would would possibly slap him. "Why are you all wet?" she asked, referring to Skylar's still dripping clothing. Skylar shrugged in response.

That voice, the brashness to it, was all very familiar to the Doctor and he whirled around with a huge grin on his face. "Ace?!"


End file.
